Older weighted 88's with good action?

[D. Gauss]

What are some older, lightweight (under 26 lbs), 88 key, weighted keyboards with decent piano action and a passable piano sound?  Reason I ask is my Monday night NYC residency band's keyboard player is having surgery and will be physically out of "gear moving" commission for 6 weeks or so.  We're nice guys in this band, but not nice enough to store & schlep his rig every week, though we'd hate for him to miss 6 weeks of gigs.  I see there's an abundance of older model keys on FB and craig's for really cheap (i.e. casio cdp's for 100 bucks).  Was thinking of buying one to leave at the club and just bringing an ipad/iphone with Pianoteq for it (piano is only sound needed).  I'm not familiar with things before the casio px-160 or yamaha p-115, are any of the models before these passable?    Thanks in advance.

 

p.s. don't want a soundless controller as prefer some kind of built in sound in case ipad goes south or i forget to bring it.

[CEB]

When I think older… 88… good action… everything is heavy.   Maybe I am thinking too old.  

[AnotherScott]

I like the first three series of Casio Privias quite a bit... PX-x00, PX-x10, PX-x20 (where the lower case x is typically a 1 or a 3, though there are other models with the same actions... and since you mentioned CDP, I think the CDP-100 has one of those early actions). In fact, having had such models for something like 20 years, these are still/again my choice for a gigging hammer-88 more often than not. One thing to be aware of, though, is that they are resistant to generating high MIDI velocities (shades of DX7!). So you'd want to include in your pianoteq set-up some velocity curve adjustment. The other issue is that the actions can get noisy when they get old, which may be an irritant even though they still work fine. (I think the fix is replacing a felt strip.)

[Sean M. H.]

Agree...once you go back in time past a certain point, there was no such thing as 88 weighted boards that were also lightweight.  All the old "workstation" type boards were built like tanks in the name of being roadworthy.  I think the ones you've already mentioned--Yamaha's P series, and Casio's Privia/PX--were amongst the first to really offer decent  weighted action in a relatively light package made mostly of plastic. 

 

If he's using an iPad for sounds anyway (barring any technical issues where the ipad), I'd say any of those old Casio's or Yamahas that have MIDI would be ok.  I'd probably just pick whatever you can find that is in the best condition.

[The Real MC]

I had a Yamaha P-90 and Korg DP, sold them because the action was too stiff.  I'm a lifelong piano player and there are certain techniques that I cannot play on that stiff action.  Many modern DPs today have stiff action, it is a major pet peeve of mine.

 

I wanted a DP for events where I only need piano.  To avoid the stiff action I went back to older DPs.  I am now happy with my Kurzweil 1200 Professional.

[Sean M. H.]

Should've asked the OP before even attempting to answer....since it's all relative, what exactly do you consider "lightweight?"...because if you consider 45-55 pounds to be light, then there are a huge amount of choices!  Think the Kurzweil that MC mentioned above falls somewhere in there.  

 

I assumed you meant maybe 30 pounds max...but we all know what assuming does 

[CHarrell]

1 hour ago, Sean M. H. said:

max...but we all know what assuming does 

 

Don't assume we all know!

[stoken6]

1 hour ago, Sean M. H. said:

Should've asked the OP before even attempting to answer....since it's all relative, what exactly do you consider "lightweight?

 

7 hours ago, D. Gauss said:

under 26 lbs

Was that a late edit? It's the first thing I saw.

 

I'd suggest a Yamaha P35 or P45. Not the last word in action, but you'll live.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[Ibarch]

Roland RD-300sx

Around 30lbs and a decent action. 

 

First fully weighted keyboard I owned. Has both DIN and USB Midi ports. 

[Stokely]

6 hours ago, CEB said:

When I think older… 88… good action… everything is heavy.   Maybe I am thinking too old.  

Yeah, same thought.

The other problem is that it's just so subjective.  Like the Roland posted just above, I've had real problems with some of the "lesser" Roland actions (and I'm not sure that is one, or if it is, which one.)   To be fair, I think given a week or two I would get used to most actions.  I got to where I could--mostly--play piano on the ultra-light MODX7, so pretty much that says anything is possible... I say "mostly" because I still tended to play too fast and sloppy at heated moments and obviously wouldn't have the control you have on a good weighted action.